UNITED STATES
NorthJersey.com
Thursday, June 23, 2005
By TERRY MATTINGLY
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
If a Catholic child steals a candy bar, church doctrine calls this a small sin.
But if a priest embezzles a large amount of money, this act is much more serious - a sin that severely corrupts and threatens the soul.
Both of these acts involve theft, but Catholicism does not believe they have equal weight. They do not have the same "parvity of matter," noted the Rev. Donald Cozzens of John Carroll University, who once led a seminary in Ohio.
"It doesn't help to look that up in a dictionary," said Cozzens, whose recent books on the modern priesthood have generated both heat and light. "That's a theological term that describes the relative gravity of immoral thoughts, acts or behaviors. There are different levels of honesty and dishonesty. There are levels of language and cursing."
But when it comes to sex, there are no misdemeanors. Every "deliberate, willful sexual sin is, from the church's perspective, a felony - a mortal sin," he said.
This may sound trivial, but it isn't for Catholics who worry about their church in an age of turmoil, tragedy and scandal. Cozzens is convinced that this basic question about the relative nature and consequences of sins must be discussed soon, before Vatican officials begin a long-awaited "apostolic visitation" of American seminaries.